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Friday, January 18, 2013

Wild Children by Richard Roberts (REVIEW)

Wild Children by Richard RobertsPublished December 11 2012 by Curiosity Quills Press344 Pages

Synopsis:

Bad children are punished. Be bad, a child is told, and you’ll be turned into an animal, marked with your crime.

Five children each tell a different story of what they became: One learns that wrong can be right, and her curse may be a blessing. Another is so Wild he must learn the simplest lesson, to love someone else. An eight year old girl must face fear and doubt as she dies of old age. Love and strangeness hit the lives of two brothers in the form of a beautiful flaming bird. Finally, the oldest child learns that what is right can be horribly wrong.

Together they tell a sixth story, of a Wild Girl who can’t speak for herself, and doesn’t seem Wild at all.

Review:

Richard Roberts writes fantasy focused around folk tales, fairy tales and mythology. He has had strange jobs such as breeding tarantulas and translating Japanese television to English. And here we have Wild Children which shows how one can write such an interesting piece or work.

What caught my eye was the title. I have four daughters - 3 of 4 are wild, the other one is watching her sisters learning to be wild. Yeah I'm going to need stables to train my wild children.

In Wild Children we meet children who are misbehaved in one way or another. They are turned into an animal based on their behaviour Donkeys, Birds, Cats, Unicorn, etc. Now, as ownership of mainly the rich people, they give us readers the story behind their respective characters.

My favorite Wild Child is Jinx, a black cat who is a wandering, with no owner, who can see what others can't. With a little bit of a Cat's Eye reference by Steven King. The two birds, Right and Left, play a huge part throughout Robert's wonderful story.

If you want fantasy, Robert Richard has it covered. Wild Children will bring out your animal as you tear through this novel. I wonder what animal I would of became. I was a devious SOB in middle school.